Spain, Great Britain and Germany training in Manchester

The three national teams are training in Manchester, doing rounds of combats and preparing for their next sports commitments. masTaekwondo.com talked with Spanish coach, Jesus Tortosa.
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These training sessions will be held during four days (May 20-24) and to know more about the Spanish team preparation, we talked with Jesús Tortosa, Technical Director of the Royal Spanish Taekwondo Federation, who explained that the main objective is to have some athletes in certain category weights train with high-level athletes to get experience with electronic protectors and correct errors. While for other athletes it is important to get them fit and obtain a competitive level against excellent rivals in order to make the selection to form the teams that will be competing in the Mediterranean Games and the World Championships in México.

When asked about the teams that will be competing in the Mediterranean Games and the World Taekwondo Championship, Tortosa said: “After the training session in Manchester, we will decide who will form the definite team for the Mediterranean Games and after the Swiss Open we will have the complete team for the World Championship, except if at that time there are athletes with similar weight and similar skills we would have to make a qualifying event”

Going back to 2012, it is inevitable to think about the outstanding performance of the Spanish National Team in the London 2012 Olympic Games, where they put themselves as absolute monarchs of the world, however the economical crisis that that is hitting various European countries, is also affecting the Spanish sports institutions. For that reason, we wanted to know about the actions that are being taken in order to attend Puebla 2013 in July, and Tortosa said: “After the Olympic Games, this will be a difficult year for us, because we are the team to beat and Spanish sports face a transition year marked by the economic crisis and budget cuts for federations and Taekwondo is not the exception. All of these factors affect directly to the preparation for the most important event of the year as the World Championships in Puebla. Still, we hope to maintain the level of previous world championship results with a team divided almost in 50% between veterans and promising young athletes for the future”

When asked about what would be the strategy to put the team fit for Puebla, taking into account the that the city of Puebla is located very high above sea level, Tortosa clearly said: “We will hold the final part of the preparation at the Sierra Nevada High Performance Center located at about 2,100 meters above sea level, and we will have all the necessary conditions to complete the preparation”.

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Going back to the subject of the training camp in Manchester, the Spanish National Team, which is formed by now for 42 athletes, is leaded by Elena Benítez and Marco Carreira. Following details of each national team: